Crispus Attucks, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Dr. King, John Lewis…
Officer Goodman represents the best of us, another shining example in a long line of courageous Americans who put the rest of us to shame, and who voluntarily put their lives in the path of bodily harm for an America that is better than any of these howling, racist dead-enders.
I understand that we need to believe there is a better future. And, hope is generally better than despair, but blind hope is a dangerous impediment to reform. So if we are going to have positive change, Americans need to have the hard conversations while we continue to have hope. Part of the reason why we are here is the casual, unthinking glorification of authoritarian agents like the police and the military in the wake of 9-11. Any old fool wearing a badge or uniform is glorified and revered, any badge or uniform is enough to shut down any questioning. I am not saying that every person with a badge or uniform is suspect, but there are too many anti-democratic folks in uniform for comfort. If we actually started to investigate the backgrounds of those we hire to police ordinary citizens, and remove those who espouse views that are antithetical to the duties they are sworn to carry out, we might have reason for hope. But, we shall see.
These attitudes are like the tide. They move in for awhile then recede. For the decades after WWII, Made In Japan meant “cheap junk”. In fairness, a lot of today’s cheap plastic junk does come from China, though that may just reflect the fact that nearly everything comes from China.
I would actually like to see our dependency on China (with its horrendous environmental and civil rights problems) greatly reduced. Trump’s trade deal only increased that dependency.
Me, when somebody posts a grammar mistake.
Looking up the term “scare quotes” (I’m quoting you) it seems just about any use of quotation marks could be labeled “scare quotes”.
Exactly. What I’m saying is it’s a stronger statement without them. I was supporting that part of your comment. it’s not supposedly legal, claimed to be legal, or merely believed to be legal. It’s actually legal
Trust me, this is not blind hope.
As I stated before I spent 3 1/2 years helping to care for Vietnam causalities, and different group almost every night.
I know reality and I know or have known a number badge wearing folks.
Some were wonderful caring people and some were and still are total ass holes.
So I still have hope and I hope you will also.
Just takes one flash-bang that someone thinks is a shot, then they’ll all be looking to play the hero.
Bunch of untrained nutcases on edge, locked and loaded, is not a recipe for any positive and peaceful outcome.
I don’t expect any positivity and if they do dare to show up (questionable imo), they won’t be peaceable (deliberately altered). They will, however, be facing a much more serious risk of repercussions than they did last time. And last time they didn’t dare step over any legal lines
Seems like a reasonable response to me. Though now you have me paranoid. Given the implied collective singular of the subject, I think we’re good here.
The Oklahoma Capital Police have asked Legislators and Staff to stay away from the Capital this weekend. It should be easier to secure the building if no one is there. I expect that we have a few legislators who will want to be part of this great event. One has filed a bill making it illegal for a city or town to have a mask mandate. Another has filed a bill that would create punishments for any social media site that contracts with the state if it “purposely deletes or censors a social media website users political speech or religious speech”. Yeah, I don’t know how that would work either.
So I’m certain that some of our legislative brain trust will be at the Capital to aide and abet any damage they care to inflict.
And @birdford you make a good point. These people are angry all the time. Even when they controlled the WH, the Senate, and the House (and were rapidly controlling the judiciary) they were still apoplectic angry at any hint that other people didn’t agree with everything they wanted. It can’t be good for blood pressure or heart health.
I don’t see the risk factor as being so much a deliberate raid with deliberate shooting, much more likely that something accidental happens that spirals, between heavy and armed security and heavily armed covidiots on the other side.
Only takes one covidiot to pull out a gun, or one officer to detect a threat and pull theirs, and you could have chaos.
Just like the majority of folks at the Capitol probably didn’t start the day thinking they’d actually be inside, but when the crowd decided to move, they ended up just going along.
“ The officer, identified by The Wall Street Journal as Lt. Tarik Khalid Johnson, has told colleagues the images weren’t what they seemed. The MAGA cap was a ruse that was part of an unusual plan to rescue more than a dozen trapped police officers during the Jan. 6 riot, the officers said he told them. And one witness said the lieutenant’s action enabled a set of doors to the Capitol to be closed, shutting off an entry point to more intruders.”
These people were firmly convinced that “Law & Order” was only for black and brown people. They are howling at the unfairness of it being applied to white folks.
Yeah that’s not how they roll. The Dylann Roof and Timothy McVeigh types willing to sacrifice themselves for “the cause” are rare birds. And they didn’t choose heavily guarded locations. Roof went to church and McVeigh was effective only because there was no one in his way. The people who waved guns around in Lansing and the ones who mobbed the Capitol in D.C. saw themselves as entitled to do what they did. That sense of entitlement and white privilege goes limp really fast when there’s a line of armed reservists in front of them
I guess I’m not communicating it right. I’m thinking more of the things like happened at the Gabby Giffords’ shooting, where at least a couple of wanna-be heroes almost shot each other during the confusion.
Add a shit-ton of armed and untrained idiots to a crowd, and that’s the sort of thing that can rapidly spiral.
The only reason wannabe heroes were spraying bullets around was because there wasn’t a large, trained, professional security presence. It’s not going to spiral. Anything even starts to happen it will get shut down fast and hard
Well, we’ll see. Hoping things stay quiet and boring.
I’m expecting these guys to show up, but in smallish numbers, then stand 12 feet back lol. They are in no way heroic.
The mob frenzy that drew in so many in D.C. was made possible precisely because they weren’t met with anything even resembling a strong resistance force.
Here’s hoping you’re right, and the whole big plan just fizzles out into a nothingberder.
I’m a little less optimistic than you, I think.